Guinness also lists the tallest one without safety equipment as 31 feet.
Ken Fuchs described some of the attempts in more detail.A 1981 article in The Globe claimed the record was 35 feet, by a guy from New Jersey, who broke a large number of bones falling from it onto Astroturf at the Giants stadium.
Chaz Marquette has made a name for himself, riding a 22' giraffe. Pictures and video of him riding in front of a basketball crowd is available from his web-site.
David Moore built "Intense Hortense", a unicycle with a wheel diameter of 73 inches (185 cm), which was ridden by Steve Gordon in Southern California.
Sem Abrahams is pictured riding a very large wheel - it might be the the same one. Notice the blocks under his feet to make riding more practical.
Jack Halpern reports having ridden a 42" giraffe in the mid-80s (I am not clear who the builder was.)
Guinness mention a 20 cm high unicycle with a 20 mm wheel.
Guinness used to (1985-1986) mention a unicycle with a smaller wheel diameter (I have reports of either 11/16" or 13/16") made by Al Hemminger, of Semcycle, (and a friend) and ridden by JeanPaul Jenack.
The 1999 Guiness record is for Peter Rosendahl of Sweden, with a unicycle without attachments, only 8" high, including the seat. It had a wheel diameter of 7/10", and his longest run was 25 feet. It was a giraffe (No, that's not an oxymoron.It had separate pedals from the wheel.)
Al Hemminger reports seeing a (non-giraffe) unicycle of about 1/8" (3 mm) ridden, but I have been unable to confirm that.
Yes! There is such thing as a two-wheeled unicycle - the wheels are stacked vertically, so the top wheel drives the next wheel down, in the wrong direction!. Three wheeled unicycles are also around, and are much easier to ride.
Possibly the unicycle with the most wheels is this 13-wheeler, pictured being ridden by Jack Halpern. It is owned by Masahiko Hayashi, of Japan, and there is a picture of him riding it.
In The Complete Book of Unicycling, (page 188) by Jack Wiley, there is a
picture of a unicycle with 8 wheels stacked in a straight line.
The unicycles below were built by Mr. Tsukahara (centre) of Nagoya, Japan. Photograph
taken in 1980 by Jack Halpern
Jack Halpern has built and ridden a half-wheel unicycle (and a one and one-half wheel unicycle). It has been described and a picture of the one and one-half wheel unicycle is available.
Jack Halpern has also built and ridden a zero-wheeler, which he describes as:
" No wheel -- just a hub, cranks and pedals."
It is a rather silly device that forces you to walk with a strange gait (and is hard to turn).
A "fair number of expert riders" have ridden "front-to-back" tandem unicycles, including Ken Fuchs.
Two Japanese riders are pictured - this picture is from a, since defunct, Japanese web-page. Unfortunately, I could never read the caption to give them credit.
Klaus and Roland Bartl, from Munich rode on a tandem unicycle, 70 km (43 miles) ride along the Danube river from Passau, Germany to Linz, Austria. This was a Guinness World Record.
Steve McPeak built a tandem in the 1970s where one rider sat above the other. He then rode it (with an assistant) on a high-wire. This appeared on a television show (along with his tall unicycle, described above).
A dicycle is two-wheels, side by side. Al Hemminger built one in 1980, and a picture is available.
Erik Kolb (based on ideas by Wolfgang Schaper) built (and rode) a recumbent unicycle. It was demonstrated at Unicon VIII,
in Guildford, and a picture appeared in On One Wheel in 1996.
Jez Weston made what was possibly the first. Pashley (in conjunction with Roger Davies) now manufactures them. They are designed for Mountain Unicycling.
In the past few years, the number of different brands of unicycle suitable for mountain unicycling has grown immensely.
Semcycle
and Tom Miller's Unicycle Factory built a hydraulic giraffe that can change height as you ride, from 4 foot to 9 foot. It works on an similar principle to the extending fists that Acme make in the cartoons, combined with hydraulics.An eccentric wheel is one where the axle is off-centre. Several people have built them - here are some photos and videos.
John Foss reports that one way to milk the laughs is to put on a plastic horse saddle from a small child's hobby horse.
A kangaroo unicycle has both pedals pointing the same way.
A simple version can be made by taking off one crank, and putting it on 180 degrees in the other direction. For a more rideable version, however, you can make one with an eccentric wheel (see above).
Used only to provide some friction whilst going down long hills, these have been fitted to a number of unicycles, including those used in the Alps crossing.
This has been tried many times, with limited success. These are described below.
The simplest approach is to have a giraffe unicycle chain go over sprocket wheels of different sizes. This gives a fixed ratio gear; you can't change gears while riding.
Robert Knight had one of these constructed, gearing up a 27 inch wheel to 48 inches (122 cm).
John Foss geared up a 6 foot Schwinn (48 teeth at the top to 26 at the bottom) He wrote an article about it for the USA Newsletter.
Michael Kirsch of Germany brought a unicycle geared nearly 3:1 to the Unicon VIII, at Guildford in 1996.
Keith Mackay built an interesting variant in 1999. While his geared unicycle is based on a chain-drive, it is like a standard unicycle in that the wheel and the cranks orbit the same axle. The gear ratio can be modified with minimal tools and a couple of minutes work. An article about Keith is available on Joel Penson's unicycling web site.A more sophisticated engineering solution is to hide the gearing mechanism in the hub, to give a standard looking unicycle with a different gearing. This also gives a fixed ratio gear; you can't change gears while riding.
There is a patent held by Thomas Kretschmer for a hub that includes its own gears. He had a mock-up of what such a unicycle might look like, but there is no sign of a working prototype.
Greg Harper, of Washington, USA, built an epicyclic hub, with a gear ratio of 1.5:1, and a 24" unicycle (effectively a 36" unicycle) to go around it! Unfortunately, the hub broke during one of its maiden voyages, and had to be modified to work. Greg has lots of photos and details about the unicycle on his web site.
Frank Bonsch, of Germany, was beaten by Greg Harper in the race to build a geared epicyclic-hub unicycle by only two days. Frank has footage of him riding it, and how the hub works on his web site.
The holy grail of geared unicycles is one in which you can change gears while riding.
It has been reported that Bob Knight of Berkshire, UK achieved this goal with a baby giraffe with a 1951 Sturmey Archer ASC 3-speed fixed hub. It is described by Bob here.
Jeff
Baker has taken a quite different approach: if you do nothing but wheelies
on a mountain bike, you can lose the front wheel to produce a unibike! He has an
album including photographs
and personal records.
Ken Fuchs has described his (non-giraffe) unicycle, with a special hub that can only be ridden forward. Get up some speed and stop pedalling (or even pedal backwards) and you are coasting!
This
picture was found in a book called Fat
Tire, but there is no other information. (I would love to give credit for this one. If
you know about it, please tell me.)
Cycle computers have been attached to a number of unicycles.
Bill Jenack, in the late 70s, attached a bicycle trailer (called a Bugger (sic) by the manufacturers, Cannondale) to his unicycle for parades.
Troy Carlson writes about his adventures doing a TV commercial with a camera attached to his unicycle.
Connie and Andy Cotter tried this. Andy wrote after Connie had a bad fall:
" Don't use clipless pedals while unicycling racing unless you have a death wish or don't like your pinky finger."
Daniel Hopkins has a web page dedicated to suspension mountain unicycles.
George Peck of Seward, Alaska has a "Monster Truck" mountain unicycle, with an elastomer shock-absorbing seat-post.
Joachim Geyer of Bochum, Germany has a dual-springed unicycle.
Milan's Museum of Science and Technology has a unicycle from 1880 with a spring-suspension holding the seat.
In 1980-1981, John Foss and Bradley Bradley, produced studded snow tyres for their unicycles.
Apparently several wooden unicycles have been made.
One made an unusual wedding gift to Thomas "Tschepplnick" Szepannek of Austria in 1997; it was a 28" wheel and weight about 20 kilograms. It has its own web page, with pictures and details.
John Foss
explains
that Bill Jenack, Tom Miller, Bernard Crandall have all had wagon wheel
unicycles. Bill Jenack's is a 46" wheel made by an
Amish wheelmaker in Pennsylvania. It weighs about 50 pounds and rides great in a
straight line, but is difficult on turns due to the strong
gyroscopic force and inertia.
Gerard Poche created one, but his web page describing it is no longer available.
Karl Auer, of Switzerland, is a cyclist who describes meeting an anonymous unicyclist riding a long distance on a wooden unicycle.
A novelty giraffe unicycle was reportedly made by setting the mechanics into a wooden door, and was ridden in a parade.
The Redford Township Unicycle Club has a unicycle made from a carousel (merry-go-round) horse.
Circus Oz, in 1998, featured an act in which two sailors rode giraffe unicycles while attacking each other. The unicycles were dressed up so that the wheel was hidden by a model of a ship, and the long post of the unicycle became the mast of the ship.
There is a patent - but no sign of a working prototype of a unicycle made for riding underwater.
A Taiwanese company,
Owl Ltd is exporting a bicycle that converts between
chainless bicycle and a unicycle. It is also possible to ride it as a bicycle
with the back wheel turning independently to the front wheel.
A patent has been taken out for a unicycle with training wheels (no, it is not simple a tricycle!). An unrelated trainer unicycle has been made - a picture and description are available.
Danny Colyer reported seeing a working kickstand on a unicycle at a convention around around 1996.
Marko
Laasonen of Finland helped build a motor unicycle about 15 years ago, and
rode it at great speeds (reportedly over 40 km per hour).
There is an anonymous picture online that would appear to be a different device with a similar concept. Can anyone provide more info?
USADRAG.COM has a
picture of a device that is more of a motorised wheelbarrow than a unicycle,
but you be the judge.
Another kind of motorised unicycle is the "monowheel", with the rider inside the circumference of the wheel. It is also known as a "motorwheel", or in parts of the USA, it is, confusingly, called a "monocycle". Douglas Self has has an interesting web page dedicated to monowheels including many pictures, including one ridden by Walter Nilsson (who rode a giraffe across the USA).
In the "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" category, a Bombardier, a Canadian firm drew a "prospective concept" of a recreational vehicle for 2025. Their EMBRIO concept of a motor unicycle won a design award and was shown in Business Week.
There
have been several attempts to get unicycles into computer games.
Nintendo released UniRacers in 1994 for the Super Nintendo.
The BBC's CBBC Club have an online, free platform game, called Extreme Unicycling with a unicycling theme.
BC's Quest for Tires (1983) and it's sequel BC II: Grog's Revenge (1984) for the ColecoVision and Commodore 64 involved a caveman riding on a stone ultimate wheel.
The 20th Anniversary Edition of Trivial Pursuit includes the following question: What unlikely rough-terrain sport has earned the abbreviation "MUni"?
The is a sculpture of a unicyclist at the Hove Town Hall in the UK, by Helen Collis. Their statue page has a picture,
Julian Orbach
Copyright © 1998-2004 Julian Orbach All rights reserved.
